Get Your [Temporary] Park On
Samantha Page
[Flickr]
Seating inside a Park[ing] Day space from 2008 provides respite in the Historic Core.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — In an effort to bring awareness to the lack of parks in urban space, Park[ing] Day 2010 will be held worldwide on Friday, September 17th. The event’s purpose is that citizens, organizations, companies, artists and activists take over a metered parking space and turn it into their own park, a temporary public space.
Last year’s event was held in six continents, 21 countries and 140 cities, with 700 parks created. This year 23 metered parking spaces will be taken over around Los Angeles, three of which are planned Downtown.
HMC ARCHITECTS
The architecture firm's plans include an urban agricultural park made of office-grown herbs and recycled paper tubes from Ford Graphics. Visitors will be able to sit and relax on the undulating paper tube topography and take home one of many herb plants to spread the word on urban farming. 633 W. 5th, across from the Central Library
DLANC
The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s park[ing] spot is themed ‘Window into the Future Use of Spring Street Park" and will feature bare feet on grass. 450 S. Spring
AECOM D+P
Fashion Your District! Join the architecture, design and planning company for a cafe event in the Fashion District. Get the opportunity to weigh in about the neighborhood and how to enhance it. 11th & Maple
For more on Parking Day in L.A., including a map of locations around the city, visit their official site.
Valerie Watson on September 16, 2010, at 02:44PM – #1
DLANC, along with our friends at CicLAvia, cordially invites you to join us for Park(ing) Day!
Tomorrow from 9:00AM-2:00PM, we will be taking over a metered parking space in front of our future Spring Street Park on Spring Street between 4th & 5th, and turning it into a mini-park for the day.
Park(ing) Day is a yearly event where folks all over LA create temporary parks to show the need for public open space, more green and more overall spatial awesomeness in our neighborhoods.
So bring your funky lawn chair, a big sun hat, your doggie, your lil' kids, your scrabble board, your blackberries and iPhones, the novel you're not finding enough time to read, a big cup of coffee, maybe a copy of Blogdowntown Weekly, all the things you hold dear, and spend some quality time with your DTLA neighbors! And spread the word, folks. Forward this email and the attached flyer!
www.parkingday.org www.ciclavia.org
Russell Brown on September 17, 2010, at 05:36PM – #2
Great Parking Day event by Valerie and Phil from new DLANC Parks committee and Sustainability committee. New DLANC board was installed Tuesday (after almost 3 months waiting). This was the first new board DLANC project.
Over 200 visited. Highlights were the Spring Street park model adjacent to the new Spring Street parking lot. Working documents, permits and construction bids will take 1 year. Construction will take another year. Summer 2012.
Grade school at 3rd & Lucas participated with 75 students as a sustainability and parks project field trip. Bolt barbers doing mohawks was a blast. Grass sod for Fido and others to relax on with lawn chairs in the street and curb. Pizza, music, sun tans, lounging. Just feed the quarters at the meter.
Grass sod was transported to Pershing Square to replace the sod ruined (constantly) by dogs at the Pershing Square Park. (Hey folks can't curb their dogs to the gutters and dirt?)
5 minutes after the park was disassembled, same grind of traffic, buses and parking lots returned to perpetual presence, like insects that will forever multiply. At least in 2 years the community will have a real park full time.
Guest on September 18, 2010, at 03:38PM – #3
Just like everybody else, I look forward to the day when downtown has ample WELL PLANNED park space.
But you know what? We don't have a functioning parking system either! What kind of a message does it send when essential street parking can be hijacked for a "good cause"..this is a very subjective concept, and very disrespectful to the people trying to run businesses downtown.
Take a look at why we even have parking meters. They were invented in 1935 to help business in Oklahoma City. By charging a few pennies and implementing a time limit they were able to assure access to their stores.
Metered parking is meant to be short term parking for businesses and services. Metered parking is NOT meant to be all day parking for commuters, handicapped placard holders, or catering trucks. Further, these spaces are NOT parks. They are not meant for recreation of any kind.
This event could have just as easily been held in a private parking lot.
Russell Brown on September 18, 2010, at 08:27PM – #4
In response to comment #3:
This event could have just as easily been held in a private parking lot.
That defeats the whole purpose of the event. Park(ing) Day is a worldwide one day event to highlight how much land and resources are spent on parking spaces, cars, roads, driveways, parking lots, and garages. The event seeks to create activism to change our priorities of allocations to transform cities by having an emphasis on parks, open space and pedestrian oriented neighborhoods.
The event also helped present to the community the Spring Street park that will be built on Spring Street at the parking lot between the El Dorado and the Rowan.
Photos from DLANC Park(ing) Day 2010!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/valerita/sets/72157624983370398/
http://parkingday.org/ PARK(ing) Day is an annual, worldwide event that inspires city dwellers everywhere to transform metered parking spots into temporary parks for the public good. Participation in 2009 included 700 parks, 140 cities, 21 countries, 6 continents
Recap on event with links.
http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/2617/
Russell Brown on September 18, 2010, at 09:24PM – #5
Pretty amazing installation outside the Library across from Library Tower. A+ for creativity, execution and sustainability.
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/09/park_ing_day_la_hancock_lofts_pricing_doesnt_budge.php
DOWNTOWN: Across the city today, groups took over parking spaces as part of Parking Day LA. Parking Day LA's Facebook page has more photos, while their official site has a Twitter stream link. Above is HMC Architects' downtown parking space: "The concept is to create a community garden, made almost entirely of recycled office materials. Used drawing tubes filled with planters of herbs, vegetables, and flowers, will be shaped into a rolling landscape. Visitors will be encouraged to take a plant home to grown in their own urban garden." Pick up a little basil for dinner.
Guest on September 20, 2010, at 04:19PM – #6
Russell, Again.... DLANC is supposed to represent all the stakeholders downtown. You think that your job as a DLANC board member entitles you to stage guerilla political protests. Your job is (was) to help the GOVERNMENT, meaning the Council office, to set priorities. You have (had) no other power. There is a process to gather stakeholder input, and a process to pass it along to the Council Office. And you wonder why they took your funding away.